Chapter Twenty-two
Destroying the Works of the Devil
He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. (I John 3:8)
The purpose of our being renewed people who function in the power and authority of Christ and are arrayed in the armor of God is so that we can destroy the works of the devil. When you destroy something, you totally obliterate it and move it out of the way. God did not manifest His Son for the purpose of having the devil and God stand side by side. He came to destroy the works of the devil. God’s work in us is to totally remove and wipe out the works of the devil in us.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (II Corinthians 5:17)
The Greek terminology used by Paul here indicates that we are new creatures in reference to quality; we are not new creatures in reference to time. To illustrate the difference between the two Greek words for “new,” let’s take an imaginary bicycle ride from my former home in Indiana to my present home in Colorado — a trip of around fifteen hundred miles. The bike I owned when I lived in Indiana was one step short of an antique; I bought it used in the early 1980s, so there is no way to guess just how old this relic really was. It did not have any gears to shift for easier peddling; its tires were not the slender, friction-efficient ones used on modern bikes; it was a plain, old-timey, one-speed bike that had been spray-painted yellow. Because of its color and vintage, my wife nicknamed it “The Yellow Submarine” after an old Beatles’ song. Imagine that bright and early one morning I start out on my antiquated yellow bicycle. By the end of the day, I have collapsed on the side of the road when a kindly Good Samaritan stops by to see what the matter is. After I tell him my plan to pedal to the Rockies, he responds that I’ll never make it on “that old bike.” After a night’s rest, I’m alive with the revelation that I must do something about “that old bike,” so I pedal to the closest sporting goods store parking lot, circle behind the building and heave “The Yellow Submarine” into the dumpster. Then I walk inside and purchase the newest, sleekest, most efficient bicycle on the market and set out again for my destination some fifteen hundred miles ahead. By the end of this second day, I find myself again exhausted on the side of the road. When another Good Samaritan stops to inquire about my condition, I repeat to him the story of my proposed bicycle journey. His response is the same as last night’s helper – that I’ll never make it on “that old bike.” When I protest that this is not an old bike, that it has only been on the asphalt this one day, and that it is the latest in bicycle technology; he reiterates that I’ll never make it on “that old bike” and drives away. Finally, I realize that my problem is not that my bike is old in terms of time – It’s old in terms of the quality of transportation. To get to Colorado, I need some updated form of transportation: an automobile or, better yet, an airplane. When we are in Christ, we are new creatures – as radically different from our old man as a jet airplane is from my old “Yellow Submarine.”
The purpose of God’s coming into this world was not so that we could have a little bit of devil in us and a little bit of God in us at the same time. He came so that He could destroy the works of the devil – totally eradicate them so that the only thing that will be in our lives is the work of God – the new creatures we have become.
He came to destroy the works of the devil not only in us, but also in our families. When the Philippian jailer in Acts chapter sixteen asked Paul, What must I do to be saved? Paul answered, If you will believe then you and your whole household will be saved. Jesus did not come into this world so that we can have one Christian in a family of pagans. He came to destroy and annihilate the work of the devil in us and our families. Paul’s message to the Philippian jailer was the same thing that the Apostle Peter announced on the Day of Pentecost, “This is for you and your whole family.” (Acts 2:39)
The Son of God was manifest that He might destroy the works of the devil in our whole community. In Acts chapter nineteen, we read the story of how the people in Ephesus were so responsive to Paul’s preaching that Demetrius the silversmith became irate because his business drastically fell off. There weren’t enough pagans left to keep him rolling in riches. He called together all the other idol makers in the city to join with him against this move of God. The Temple of Diana was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The largest physical structure in Asia at the time, it was a magnificent piece of architecture. People came from around the world to worship there; but when Paul came to town, so many people converted to Christianity that the temple began to fall into neglect because there weren’t enough pagans left to buy the images and give offerings. When Demetrius rose up to incite a riot against Paul, it was proof that the works of the devil were being destroyed – not just in Paul’s life, not just in Paul’s family, but in the whole community. Jesus came for the purpose of destroying and defusing the works of the enemy in us, in our families, and our communities.
Acts 17:6 records the words of the angry Jewish mob who attacked Paul and Silas in Thessalonica, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.” This statement attests to the facts that Paul’s ministry was not just a little local event and that Paul was not a man of just some local notoriety. When the work of the Son of God was manifest through Paul, it was destroying the work of the enemy worldwide. He and his partners were accused of turning the whole world upside down. The purpose of the gospel is to destroy the works of the enemy in us, in our families, in our communities, and in the whole world!
There is coming a time when this work will be finalized and the Son of God will be manifest in destroying the works of the devil in the whole world. Revelation chapter nineteen tells us that at that time He will appear on a white horse and we will be seated on a myriad of white horses behind him. Upon his thigh will be written, “The Faithful and the True One.” (verse 11) And when He, in faithfulness and truth, confronts the devil head on, He will be able to destroy the works of the enemy in the whole world, Satan will be bound, and Death and Hell will be cast into the lake of fire. What a glorious consummation to the struggle that is going on now!
Before He can destroy the works of the enemy universally, and before He can destroy the works of the enemy in our community, and before He can destroy the works of the enemy in our family, Jesus must destroy the works of the enemy in us individually. That is the starting point. I personally believe that when we see that the works of the enemy are not being destroyed in the world or in our community or in our family, it is probably because they have not all been destroyed the way they should have been in us. God wants our lives at the point that He is totally Lord of all. He wants to totally rule and destroy all of the works of the enemy in our lives. When that happens, we can begin to see the ripple effect moving into our family, through our community, and into the entire world.
John 10:10 tells us that the thief comes to kill, to steal, and to destroy. But what is it that the devil wants to steal? Our money? Our health? Our hope? Our joy? Yes, he wants to steal all these – and much, much more. He wants to steal all those things because they are of value to us. He wants to kill our bodies, our souls, and our spirits. He wants to destroy everything that we have built – in the physical and in the spiritual. All that the devil wants to do is to kill, steal, and destroy – in our lives, in our families, in our communities, and in the world. He will use every means that he can – sickness, sin, war, natural disaster, evil rulers, crime, drugs, etc. If he has a tool, he will use it for his one purpose – to kill, steal, and destroy.
The same verse – John 10:10 – also says that Jesus came to bring life and life more abundantly. When Jesus gives us life, it is not just existence – barely getting by – it is life that is abundant! He wants us to enjoy living. One day we will live in heaven, but there is a whole lot of heaven to enjoy here on earth before we get to heaven. He wants us to experience heaven on earth in our process of getting to heaven. He has promised us that we could have joy (John 15:11), hope (I Corinthians 13:13), peace (John 14:26), health (Proverbs 3:8), prosperity (III John 2), salvation for our family (Acts 16:31), a safe community (Ezekiel 34:27) – and the list goes on and on. He has promised that we could have favor with God and with man. (Proverbs 3:4) He has even promised that we could have friends (Proverbs 16:7), and love (I John 2:5), and freedom from fear (Psalm 91:5) and anger (Hosea 14:4). He has come to destroy the works of the enemy, and He wants us to have an abundant life in the place of everything negative that He has destroyed. However, many believers find themselves most of the time in the struggle between what God wants to do and what the devil wants to do because they have not learned how to release the destructive force of God upon the works of the enemy and then release the life-giving forces of God into their situations.
Scripture tells us that Job was a righteous and upright man. In fact, Job 1:1, 1:8, and 2:3 go so far as to call him perfect. From that evaluation, I would say that he had more going for him than most of us; however, the devil certainly had a great chance to do some destructive work in his life. Satan appeared before God one day and said, “Jehovah, I have been up and down in the world seeking what I can devour.” God answered, “Did you happen to bump into my friend Job while you were down there?” “Well, not exactly,” Satan replied, “I got near him, but I didn’t actually bump into him, so to speak, because there was a hedge between him and me. I could peek over the hedge – and, when I did, I saw that inside the hedge he had hundreds of camels, thousands of sheep, and billions of dollars. I couldn’t get to him, but I recognized that he was there.” God said, “I would like you to consider him. He is a prize to Me and an example of the fact that I want to give life and to give life more abundantly. He is my showpiece because he has tapped into what I want to give.” “Ah, so what?” Satan retorted, “He is only yours because of everything you give him. If he didn’t have all those things, he would be just as wicked and evil as the next guy.” God’s response was surprising, “We can test that. I give you permission to take his goods.” You know the story of how the devil sent a wind that blew down the house and killed his sons and his daughters. Fire from the sky came down and burned up his livestock. Marauding invaders came in and took the rest of his possessions until he was left in poverty. Then God challenged the devil again, “Well, Job doesn’t have all those goods anymore, but he is still doing well. He hasn’t cursed me or betrayed me.” The devil snapped back, “Well, that’s because you still are holding on to him. If he didn’t have his physical health, he would be mine.” God confidently replied, “Okay, but just don’t kill him. The power over his body is in your hand, but the power over his life is not in your hand.” So the devil afflicted Job with disease. He was ravaged from head to toe with sores and boils. There was no medical cure, but Job didn’t have money to buy medical treatment even if it had been available. He wound up on a pile of ashes because ashes were soft and contained alkali that helped to somewhat relieve the infection. He was licked by dogs. He was in a pathetic situation. The only thing that was left in his life was the one thing he probably didn’t need – a wife, who advised him, “Why don’t you just curse God and die.” Then the devil sent to Job four of his friends who just stood there and gazed at him. After a week of gazing, they finally decided to accuse. They picked his life apart trying to prove that he was the guilty one and that whatever was happening in his life was because of his sin. This went on for thirty-eight chapters as they rattled on, revealing their ignorance, point after point trying to bring Job into condemnation. Job refused condemnation. Finally, Job stood up and told those men, “I trust my God. And even if He kills me, I am still going to trust him.” Job didn’t understand the cosmic battle he was in. He never knew that he had to rebuke Satan. Therefore, the enemy was killing, stealing, and destroying in his life. The devil was doing exactly what he knows how to do – and what he wants to do in your life and mine. But the key to the story is that Job kept clinging to God. When Job said to God, “I trust you,” Satan knew that God had proven His point that Job was an upright man. Then God turned Job’s captivity, demonstrating that it is His intent for us to have life and life more abundantly. He poured out upon Job double of everything that he ever had before. Even though Job didn’t know any strategies of spiritual warfare, he clung to God and refused to lose his faith or be shaken in his relationship with God. Because he wasn’t shaken, God then stepped in and fought his battle for him. He told the devil, “Enough is enough. Move out of the way.” Then God went back to doing what He knows how to do – giving life and giving abundant life.
In our lives, we have an advantage that Job didn’t have. We understand who the devil is and what his plan is. God has given us the entire scripture. The book of Job was written long before Moses penned the book of Genesis. There was no written revelation for Job. There was no book for him to study in order to understand the revelation of the struggle of the ages. Today, we have the written Word so that we can understand the techniques and the tactics of the devil. The scripture tells us that we are not to be ignorant of the devil’s devices. (II Corinthians 2:11) We have a revelation that we can use when we come into spiritual conflict. We can recognize the work of the devil and the work of God and can tap into God’s provisions. We can believe for God to fight our battles for us, and we can join with Him in spiritual warfare as we hasten our victory. Job clung onto God, and God fought his battle for him. But we have the advantage of being able to actually join in that battle to precipitate a quick and a mighty victory. God intends to destroy the works of the enemy in our lives, the lives of our families, our communities, and our world – and He has invited us to join Him in bringing about that victory.
Let’s take a quick look at an interesting passage in the book of Acts, God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power and he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil for God was with Him. (verse 10:38) Notice that the entire Trinity is mentioned in this verse: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They are working together to do good and to heal all who are oppressed by the devil. They have joined together as one dynamic trio to destroy the work of the devil. If the devil is at work, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have linked their unity together to come and destroy that work.
Our part is in James 4:7‑8, Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands you sinners, purify your hearts ye double minded. We have a three-part action: (1) submit ourselves to God; (2) resist the devil; and (3) draw nigh to God. In this three-part operation, two parts are toward God while only one is toward the devil. In the story of Job, we can see the power of the two parts that are directed toward God. Even though he submitted himself to God and drew near to God, he apparently wasn’t even aware that there was a devil; therefore, he didn’t even know that he was supposed to resist the devil – much less how to do it! Because he refused to let his wife and so-called friends confuse him and mess with his mind, he eventually saw a victory. His victory was won totally by drawing near to God and submitting to Him. Imagine how much more might have happened in his life had he been able to add resisting the devil to his strategy! The powerful truth is that today we have all three elements available to us.
Notice one other thing about the passage from James. God calls for our total personality to be involved. Cleanse your hands. If there is anything that we are physically involved with that is related to uncleanness – stealing or adultery, for example – we must wash our hands of it, and stop it. Then purify your heart. This phrase addresses our soulical relationship. Romans 8:6 directs us, For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. The double-minded man sways back and forth between God and the devil, between his spirit man and his flesh. God tells us to purify our hearts and get rid of this double-mindedness that invalidates all that He would like to do in our lives. When we do that, we are able to resist the devil and see him flee from us because we have drawn nigh to God. Of course, the command to draw nigh to God and to submit our lives to Him is a directive toward our spiritual nature. God is at work in our lives to destroy the total work of the devil in us, our homes, our communities, and our world – but it requires that we participate with His plan in our total personality: body, soul, and spirit.
While going through the temptations and trials of life, it is generally true that the darkest hour is just before the dawn. Just before daybreak is when it looks as though things are never going to work out. It is at this point that we must continue to remind ourselves not to give up and determine that we will never quit in resisting the devil and pressing into God. It was Jesus Himself who told us that it is the ones who endure all the way to the end who will experience salvation. (Matthew 24:13, Mark 13:13)
The story is told of a gentleman in South Africa who owned a silver mine. He knew from the geological reports that there had to be silver in this area. By all indications, there had to be a bonanza of silver just waiting for him; but all he could find was rock – no silver. He kept digging and digging until he finally decided to sell the mine. The first week that the new owner began digging inside that cavern – where most of the manual labor had already been done by the previous owner – he struck one of the most valuable veins of silver that had ever been found in Africa. He brought out millions of dollars in silver. The man who had done all the work gave up just one week too soon!
I remember a weekend retreat at a campground in the mountains of North Carolina. Although the campground was on the top of the mountain, the gate was at the bottom of the mountain. Some of the fellows who were joining us there for the camp got there late after the gate had been closed. They parked their car at the bottom of the mountain and started walking. They walked, and they walked, and they walked, and they climbed up toward the top of the mountain until they were too tired to go any further. Not knowing how much farther the campsite would be, they decided to walk back down the mountain and spend the night in their car. The next morning after the gate was unlocked, they drove up the mountain and passed a landmark they recognized from the night before indicating the spot where they had given up and turned around. Around the next bend in the road was the campground. They could have had dinner with us, been in the evening meeting, enjoyed fellowship with all their friends around the warm fire, and slept in a nice warm cabin if they had turned one more corner. But they gave up too soon.
Second Kings chapter seven tells a story about four lepers. The enemy had surrounded the city of Samaria. The people inside the city were starving to death because the Syrians had cut off all supplies. They had depleted their supply of food, and all their rations were gone. The Bible tells us that women were even eating their own babies to keep themselves alive. These four lepers, living in the trenches in no-man’s land between the Syrian army and the city wall, were outcasts left outside the city trying to forage for whatever food they could find. Eventually, they came to the point of being ready to give up because they knew that death was sure. Just then, one of them said to the others, “Why are we just sitting here until we die? Why don’t we do something? If we sit here, we are going to die. If we go back to Samaria, we will surely die. Our only hope for possible survival is to go into the camp of the Syrians. Maybe they will have compassion and throw us some scraps.” While they were on their way to the camp of the Syrians, God sent a noise, and the Syrians ran from the camp in fear for their lives. The lepers went into the camp and found enough food to literally “feed an army.” They also found all their gold, silver, and all the other treasures that the Syrian army had collected in all their other campaigns up to that point. The lepers walked into untold wealth because one of them refused to give up. Not only were they blessed, but they brought deliverance to the city of Samaria. There was enough food for the entire city!
Joseph was a man who had every opportunity in life to give up. As soon as he had a dream of what God wanted to do in his life, his brothers became jealous, threw him in a pit, and sold him into slavery. God exalted him as the master of slaves over all of Potiphar’s house to the point that Potiphar didn’t even know how much money he had because he had left Joseph in control of it all. We all know the story of how Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce Joseph and brought false charges against him when he resisted. Eventually, she had him thrown into prison where he met a man who promised to help him get released. However, the butler forgot about him, and Joseph had to spend two more years in the prison. Joseph could have – no, by all natural means, should have – given up. But when the Lord’s timing was right, Pharaoh had a dream and the butler remembered Joseph. (Genesis 37:2-36, 39:1-41:57)
Jacob got himself into a lot of trouble: he stole Esau’s birthright and cheated him out of his inheritance; he fled to Laban’s house and finagled his uncle/father-in-law out of his possessions; he got himself into a place where he couldn’t go back home because he knew that Esau was coming with a troop of men ready to kill him and Laban, with all of his forces, was pursuing him from the other direction; it was a dark hour in Jacob’s life. There, at Penuel (Genesis 32:28) – in the middle between two adversaries, being ground into powder emotionally and spiritually – he turned to God, and God changed his name from Jacob (the supplanter) to Israel (the prince with God). Jacob’s dark hour turned to dawn. A little later on in his life, Jacob had another experience in which he discovered that it was dawn just when all hope seemed to have been eclipsed. He loved his son Joseph, but Joseph was taken away from him. He had every physical reason to believe that Joseph was dead, but it seems that something inside of Jacob believed during all those years that there was a possibility that his beloved son might still be alive. I suspect that the old man must have somehow anticipated seeing his son again. When there were famine and starvation in the land, he had to send his sons to Egypt. But the news came back that his sons couldn’t buy grain in Egypt without taking Benjamin with them – a proposal that broke Jacob’s heart because Benjamin was now his only hope of fulfilling the covenant promise that he had originally planned to pass on to Joseph. Poor Jacob was again pressed between the rock and the hard place – he could not bear for Benjamin to leave his side; but if Benjamin did not go down to Egypt, all of his family would starve. Starvation was tearing him from one direction and the possible loss of Benjamin was tearing him from the other direction. This time, he was stretched and torn where before he had been pressed and ground. Just at that moment – when it was the darkest hour – suddenly, the dawn came and he found that Joseph was indeed alive. Not only was he alive, he was Pharaoh’s right-hand man in Egypt. Jacob was amazed that his son was already fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant of bringing blessing to the entire world – even though that covenant had not even been passed to him yet! (Genesis 48:15-16)
The resurrection is the same. Our hope – Jesus Christ, the one we hoped would be the Redeemer – had been beaten, assaulted, humiliated, crucified, and buried. But now He was missing! How much more desperate could the human race be? The only man we had any hope in had been so totally defiled and debased. He is dead, and now even His body has been stolen. But just when it was the very darkest hour, up from the grave He arose with a mighty triumph over His foes! The light shone, our dawn broke right at the moment when all hope was gone. Our darkest hour can be the birthing of our dawn.
I think I have only received one suicide note in my life. It came from one of my students who said that all hope was gone. He was flunking out of school. He was a failure. He was so far behind in his school debts that he would never get them paid. When I finally chased the guy down and talked with him, I had a lot of good news for him. His miracle was already in the mail, but the postman just hadn’t delivered it yet. The day before, somebody had come in and paid off all his school bills, so he didn’t owe the school one penny. He had a receipt coming in the mail, but he just hadn’t read his mail yet. In his darkest hour, his dawning was already on the way. He thought that his grades were very low; yet, in fact, he made the Dean’s List that semester.
The father of one of my elementary school buddies had been a supply pilot during World War II. He would shuttle the planes to the front lines. He and five other supply pilots would fly six planes to the battle; then all of the get into one plane and fly back to the base. One evening, they were all flying in formation over the Sahara Desert bringing planes to the troops in the European theater. All of a sudden, a sandstorm blinded them and they lost total visibility. They had to break formation and fly in opposite directions so they wouldn’t crash into each other. The camel brigade and several search-and-rescue aircraft were sent out to try to find the missing pilots. One had crashed and died. The others were found – either by local people or the French Foreign Legion. All were located except one who had landed in the middle of the desert. During the several days before they found him, he was exposed to the unrelenting heat of the desert and the unforgiving sun. With his water gone, he was beginning to die of dehydration. He came closer and closer to death, desperation, and insanity. Until finally, he said, “I give up,” and he took his pistol and shot himself. The tragedy of the story is that the camel brigade was just over the dune ready to find him. In fact, they were close enough to hear the pistol shot. He gave up too soon.
We must determine to submit ourselves to God, resist the devil, and draw nigh to God – and never give up! If we will apply these simple, but powerful, principles, we will see the works of the enemy destroyed in our personal lives, in our families, in our communities, and even to the ends of the earth! But this victory will not come without determination in the struggle.